Category: Education
A Newly Discovered Textbook Example Refuting NYT and NCSE’s False Claims About Haeckel’s Bogus Embryo Drawings
Recently I documented ten examples of textbooks refuting the NCSE-scripted misinformation printed in the New York Times claiming that Ernst Haeckel’s faked embryo drawings haven’t been used in textbooks since “20 years ago.” In fact, just last week while browsing through some science textbooks at a local thrift store, I discovered another textbook that includes Ernst Haeckel’s bogus embryo drawings. In 1998, Judith Goodenough, Robert A. Wallace, and Betty McGuire published Human Biology: Personal, Environmental, and Social Concerns with Harcourt College Publishers. Some Darwinists (like Randy Olson) have claimed that if Haeckel’s drawings are used, it’s only to provide historical background on the history of evolutionary thought. Not so with this textbook: Chapter 20, “Evolution: Basic Principles and Our Heritage” Read More ›
New York Times Rehashes Darwinist Myths about Haeckel’s Embryo Drawings and Evolution
The NCSE’s rebuttal to Jonathan Wells’ Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution, as re-published in this past Sunday’s New York Times, contains some small differences from their original response which Wells refuted in 2002. I will rebut some of the NCSE’s new false claims in a couple of posts this week. First, let’s look at the fourth question that Dr. Wells asks: “Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry — even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?” Dr. Wells is referring to the faked embryo drawings by the 19th century Read More ›
New York Times Inherits the Spin, Republishes Darwinists’ Error-Filled “Answers” to Jonathan Wells’ “Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher”
The New York Times seems to be afraid that students about to go back to school might have their heads filled with ideas that challenge Darwinian evolution. Thus today it uncritically republished a 6+ year-old error-filled response by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) to Jonathan Wells’ Ten Questions to Ask your Biology Teacher About Evolution. Bruce Chapman already responded to the Times articles on DiscoveryBlog, here. Of course, the NCSE’s attempted response didn’t really answer the “Ten Questions” then, and it doesn’t now. In fact, in 2002 Jonathan Wells authored a forceful rebuttal to the NCSE, “Inherit The Spin: Darwinists Answer ‘Ten Questions’ with Evasions and Falsehoods,” which we have now reprinted below so that readers may judge Read More ›
Hypocrisy on Display at The Des Moines Register: Academic Freedom Protects Bullying Students about Religion, But Not Presenting Evidence for Intelligent Design
Academic freedom doesn’t protect a professor’s right to talk about the scientific evidence favoring intelligent design. But it does protect a professor’s right to belittle his students’ fundamentalist religious beliefs. That’s the hypocritical view being championed by Des Moines Register columnist Rekha Basu. Unfortunately, her mindset reflects the views of a lot of pro-Darwin apologists in the media. When astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was being harassed and discriminated against at Iowa State University (ISU) because of his support for intelligent design, Basu actually cheered on the inquisitors. When atheist religion professor Hector Avalos spearheaded a campus petition against intelligent design in 2005, for example, Basu wrote that “it would be would be a serious breach of academic integrity” for universities to Read More ›
Information Suppressed on Louisiana Science Education Act and Evolution by Louisiana Newspaper
The following information was suppressed by Louisiana Advocate reporter Will Sentell in his story titled “La. alone with controversial science law.” Contrary to Sentell’s report, Louisiana is definitely not alone in promoting the critical analysis of evolution. This background information was sent to Mr. Sentell after he interviewed Casey Luskin of Discovery Institute and before he filed his article. But he apparently didn’t want to let the facts get in the way of his story: STATE AND LOCAL POLICIES SUPPORTING CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF EVOLUTION As of 2008, eight states have adopted statewide laws or science standards that (1) encourage or require critical analysis of evolution or (2) protect the freedom of teachers to present scientific criticisms of evolution. In addition, Read More ›